Instead of studying leadership, why not spend some time studying leaders and strategies in the wild? You can learn a lot from leadership experts, but you always see the leader and what he or she does through the expert’s personal lens. Supplement that learning with studying real leaders in real life situations and draw your own conclusions. The posts in this series will help you.

Every week I’ll point you to articles by and about real leaders in real situations and to articles about how real companies are faring in the marketplace. Read them. Think about them. Draw your own lessons and conclusions from them. Then try to apply those lessons in your own real life.

This week I’m pointing you to articles about Kate Lewis, Peter Jackson, Jim Keane, Paul Polman, and Wendy Kopp.

From Stella Bugbee: Hearst Chief Content Officer Kate Lewis Recommends Throwing Out Your To-Do List

“Kate Lewis is the chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, which publishes countless magazines across the globe, including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Cosmopolitan. Lewis oversees Hearst’s editors-in-chiefs and directs content strategy for the publisher’s print and digital brands, which reach an audience of 145 million readers each month — including 70 percent of U.S. women. She lives in New York with her husband and two kids. Here’s how she gets it done.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story

From Gabriel Perna: Bluescape CEO On What Many Silicon Valley Leaders Get Wrong about Management

“As far back as 1985, Bluescape chief Peter Jackson has been able to call himself a CEO. He admits though, back then, he didn’t nearly know enough about the job and what it entailed.”

From Art Kleiner: Creating a culture of learning

“Steelcase CEO Jim Keane explains how giving people work-space choices can make workplace behavior more human.”

From David Gelles: He Ran an Empire of Soap and Mayonnaise. Now He Wants to Reinvent Capitalism

“As chief executive of Unilever, Paul Polman tapped into the company’s history in an effort to make it more sustainable, and profitable.”

From McKinsey & Company: Preparing young leaders for the future of work: An interview with Wendy Kopp

“In this interview with McKinsey’s Rik Kirkland, Wendy Kopp, CEO and cofounder of Teach For All and founder and former CEO of Teach For America, shares how her organization has shifted its orientation so it can better prepare tomorrow’s leaders with the skills of the future. She also discusses why businesses need to be equal stakeholders in the process. An edited version of her remarks follows.”

For some ideas about how to get more from this series of posts, check out “Studying Leaders in the Wild.“